A sudden inspiration as I woke up on Sunday morning - to crack how to make the best hair conditioning treatment. I wanted something to nourish my drier ends and to make the rest of my hair soft, light and silkier. I now have a greater depth of knowledge about the varying properties of a whole range of wild and wonderful oils from luxurious argan, sea buckthorn and buritti fruit oil - packed full of vitamin E and A, adsorbing into skin, leaving you feeling replenished and divine - to the most amazing laurel berry oil - used in ancient Syria to make one of the world's oldest soaps - Aleppo soap. Other oils such as moisturising cold pressed virgin olive oil - who could do without? and the wonders of jojoba oil or is is a wax? - closest to our own natural sebum - fantastic in hair products. I needed to find a good balance of these oils to use in my hair but to then rinse out and not leave my shafts greasy or claggy.
So.....armed with some of this knowledge, I set about transforming the laundry room (very apt) - into my lab! A little side note - I just need to have my own lab area, having been a research scientist for many years in the dark and distant past.
Out came all the oils and then the other ingredients - hmmmm so, the oils need to wash out but do a good job too. I need to use a surfactant to mildly clean - Yes, add some of my shampoo ingredient - gently cleaning and derived from coconut oils. Now, I need the mixture to thicken so it is more or a paste or gel - hmmmm - some emulsifying fatty acids - again derived from vegetable oils. Add a little glycerine - from vegetable oils too - for moisturising the hair shafts. Now combine with my favourite oils, warm, stir. Hmmmmm - the oils were separating - try a different ratio? Add some sodium bicarb? Maybe? Whisk and heat - better!
Okay - so after much faffing about (faffing is apparently one of my least endearing qualities), a rather more appealing mixture resulted.
Oh my - now I am excited! I made two different types - one with added buritti oil - great orange colour and the other with added hemp seed oil and a few silky extras. Both are fantastic just to use for washing my hands - so that set me thinking about an extremely moisturising hand wash (we will leave that to another time).
So - the proof of the pudding will be how these work in my hair. Let's give that a go.
Fast forward to Monday morning - up at 5am spreading the hemp oil with lemongrass and rosemary essential oil hair treatment all over my dry hair. Piled this on top of my head with a clip. Left this for an hour - accidentally as I was busy dealing with my son. Rinsed and washed the treatment out, using my hemp shampoo - one small wash followed by hemp conditioner - but not over vigourously, combed, dried and WOW! My hair feels amazing. It feels light and rejuvenated. It's not greasy, not dry but soft and healthy looking. Now I'm tempted to stop here, write up the recipes, send them for licencing and add them to my website. Perhaps I need to hold my horses and test a few more samples and have feedback from others first.
